


Someone to Watch Over Me

by jedia_lo21



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:15:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22064608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedia_lo21/pseuds/jedia_lo21
Summary: RISE OF SKYWALKER SPOILERSRey went to Tatooine to bury a legacy, but the tattered remains of her bond with Ben keep plaguing her with flashes and memories of him. But they're revealing a different set of events than those that seemed to happen on Exogol... could Ben still be alive?
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 32
Kudos: 82





	1. Direction

**Author's Note:**

> Back again with a new Star Wars fic. It's been a long time. It's so good to be back.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this fix-it fic. Let's be honest- The Rise of Skywalker wasn't what we expected.
> 
> This will be a long one, but I think we all deserve more Reylo than we've ever gotten. Never fear, there will be a happy ending!

**Tatooine | 35 ABY**

Rey stepped down the ramp of the Millenium Falcon. Her boots kicked up a small cloud of sand when she stepped on the ground and she marveled for a moment at the sight of the dust billowing up into the air and disappearing in the sunlight. The sight reminded her of the many years she’d spent on Jakku, the desert planet her parents hid her on to escape Palpatine.

Rey winced and squeezed her palms against the thought. She didn’t want to remember her time on Exogol, where Palpatine had confirmed the suspicions of her heritage. She didn’t want to remember the terrible pain of having her life essence stripped away from her, of rippling blackness closing over her vision as she momentarily embraced death, or the light of Ben’s brown eyes staring back at her from the darkness. She could still feel the phantom shape of his lips against hers, the warmth of his breath… before his body melted into the Force and he was gone from her.

Rey blinked back the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.

Nearly everyone she’d ever loved had been taken from her. First, her parents, murdered by Ochi and Palpatine. And then Han, the man she could close her eyes and imagine being the father she never had. Luke, the one who listened and understood and guided. Leia… who had seen who Rey truly was and did not hold the information against her.

And then Ben.

Rey sucked in a breath and then fed the exhale slowly into the Force. The familiar weight of it, like a blanket of warmth, pressed down on her mind, filled the broken spaces in her heart, and cradled her in momentary tranquility.

_ No one’s ever really gone _ , Luke’s voice settled over her.

Rey centered herself and turned her face to the warmth of Tatooine’s suns and the caress of the Force against her skin. The energy field wasn’t a tangible thing. It wasn’t sentient. The Force didn’t breathe or speak. But Rey liked to think of it as a living being. A friend that could hold her hand and lead her through life with the promise that it could never leave her. Not like everyone else had done in her life.

The Force was a part of her and it would never leave her alone.

Rey smiled and resolved herself to ignore memories that were painful. This was to be a soothing adventure, like saying goodbye to an old friend with the promise that you’d meet again.

She stroked the cool metal of Han Solo’s ship and then turned and headed for the small homestead in the distance.

She thought about Luke’s aircraft he had lifted out of Ahch-To’s waters and given to her so she could fly to Exogol. She wanted to think about metal and machines, things easy to fix. They were formulaic and understandable where the other things in her life worked chaotically.

“T-65B X-wing starfighter with a Class 1 hyperdrive,” she murmured the specs under her breath.

She tried not to think about the sand filling the canvas of her boots. It had been a long time since she’d had to deal with the annoying little grains infiltrating every crevice of her clothes and skin.

“Armed with four Taim & Bak KX9 laser cannons…”

From this distance, with the setting suns in the far horizon coloring the sky blue, the Lars homestead looked like a boat floating on a quiet ocean.

“… Krupx MG7 proton torpedo launchers…”

It looked desolate and abandoned. Rey startled for a moment Luke had grown up just like she had: a nobody on a planet the galaxy never remembered.

“…4L4 fusial thrust engines…” She finished weakly as she neared the dome of Luke’s childhood home.

Time and desolation let the sands gather over the small abode. The pourstone dome was covered with grime and blackened with ash. Rey headed for the crater next to it and peered down into the courtyard. Twin moisture condensers loomed in the center half-buried under the sand. Most of the lofts had probably been swallowed long ago as well, but the three largest entrances were still open enough to walk through.

The crater walls seemed sturdy. When Rey stretched out her mind to feel along the walls with the Force, she could sense the magnetic ore laced with the soil. Her lips twitched with the ghost of a smile.

Rey turned and nudged a curved sheet of metal- probably a piece torn from the tech dome nearby- sticking out of the sand next to her.

She shook out the grains and cushioned herself into the makeshift sled. Rey dug her fingers into the sand and propelled herself forward. For a moment, the strands of her hair flew back with the air and her stomach fluttered as it used to on Jakku when she’d slide down sand dunes that were hundreds of feet tall.

She stepped off the sled and into the sand which parted beneath her boots like deep snow.

The entryways were much larger now up close, dark and looming overhead. Rey turned to the nearest one and reached out with the Force.

At first, there was nothing… and then, small glimpses, shards of memories, poured into her mind. A boy who always dreamed bigger than the desolate planet where he lived. A boy born with the Force, yet unknowing of its presence in his life directing his future toward something bigger than he could ever dream of.

Rey smiled and strode through the entry. She trailed her fingers along the pourstone walls, letting the Force feed her glimpses into Luke’s life. He had been a bright boy, restless in the same way she had been on Jakku. Except he had searched the skies for adventure. And she had searched them for her parents.

Rey touched the objects of Luke’s childhood home and let herself marvel for just a moment, the way she used to when the scavengers and traders on Jakku used to tell legends about the great and mysterious Luke Skywalker. He grew up on a planet at the edge of the universe. A mere farm boy who would change the fate of everyone in the galaxy. She was walking through the home of a legend.

It was only fair she’d lay his legacy to rest with these sands.

Rey returned to the courtyard and trudged up the dune she’d slid down. She chose a spot near the entry dome and knelt in the soft dust. In her pack, she drew out a burgundy sheath of cloth and two lightsabers. Luke’s and Leia’s. The lightsabers she and Ben had used to defeat Palpatine.

Rey stroked the metal of both and the Force whispered against her fingers, rising from the hilts like steam. Luke and Leia were imprinted in them.

Rey had read in the books Luke lent her on Ahch-To that young learners training to be Jedi would go on quests for the Krystals that powered the lightsabers, and they used the force to put the hilts together, sealing a bit of themselves into the blades so their lightsabers were unique to them. Whispered to them. Were pieces of them.

The two sabers in her hands were as different as their masters had been. Luke’s had a painful, bloody history. Rey could feel the imprint of his father in it, the creator of the saber, layered under Luke. He had been so strong in the Force that the energy still warped slightly around the hilt as if Anakin was still parting it with his presence. It was both dark and light, fed by the Chosen One and Luke to create a blade that balanced in chaos. Rey would miss the feel of its grip and her connection to its restlessness.

Leia’s lightsaber felt light, pure, and weightless. It didn’t have the history Luke’s did, but the ghost of Leia’s cool hands felt like a touch under Rey’s palms. As if the General were here and stroking the skin of her hand comfortingly. Leia had kept her saber for her son, knowing through the Force that he’d need it, though not in the way she desired.

Rey smiled and nestled the lightsabers into the cloth. She wrapped the bundle with leather cord and then rested a hand on the top.

Here was the last of the Skywalker legacy buried in the warmth of the sands at last. Pain and love had fueled the bloodline, and now the dynasty was reunited in the Force. All three children had been crafted from its fabric and the Force had loved each one of them. The three had been greater than the galaxy knew, instrumental in the lives of so many.

Rey would lay them down to rest.

She reached out with the Force and tugged on the memories in her mind. She imagined them traveling down her fingertips, through the cloth, and into the metal hilts, wrapping around the layers of the Skywalkers.

She remembered her Master and his lessons on the Force’s balance. She remembered Leia’s warm eyes and calm presence reminding her that she was loved. She remembered the feeling of a thousand Jedi filling her with strength as she faced her grandfather, the feeling of all their presence flooding through her like she was a conduit, redirecting the strength to defeat an evil that had plagued the galaxy for too long.

Rey threaded the memories into the hilts and then used the Force to bury them deep in the sand.

Perhaps the lightsabers would be buried here forever. Or perhaps in the future, another boy or girl with a special connection to the Force would stumble upon this place without realizing what was drawing them to it. They’d open the bundle and feel the weight of so many memories and presences and remember that they are not alone in the Force.

Rey smoothed the sand with her palm and then stood, forlorn.

For so long, the longing she’d sought for most of her life had been behind her. And then it had been right under her nose. And now there was nothing in the past she wanted, nothing in the present, and nothing for her in the future.

She hadn’t thought far enough ahead, but she’d always imagined that Ben would be by her side when she did.

Now he was gone and there was nothing else for her to do.

◉◉◉

Rey returned to the Millenium Falcon when the suns set. She didn’t want to stay in the Lars homestead for the night. It seemed more like a tomb now with the lightsabers buried with it that Rey didn’t want to disturb the ghosts of the past. And she had seen the Jawas and their Sandcrawler gathered in the distance. They would probably strip the Falcon before sunrise and leave her stranded on another desolate planet if she let her eyes off the ship.

Perhaps that was for the best. If she was stuck here, then she’d be forced to come up with a plan for the future.

Poe, the new leader of the Resistance, had stopped her before she’d taken the Falcon here and asked if she’d return soon to them. “There’s a lot of work that still needs to be done. Defeating the First Order was only the beginning,” he had told her, gripping her arm like a vice.

She had given him her most honest answer, that she would let the Force guide her where she needed to be. But the Force held no answers and she was hesitant to return to Ajan Kloss to help the Resistance determine how the galaxy should be governed now that the First Order had been defeated.

There were so many worlds the great battle across the galaxy had affected. There was no government or leadership. Treaties had dissolved and others formed during the rebellion on both sides. There was the question of credit exchange, compensation, rebuilding, economy, politics, and justice.

Rey needed to breathe and think far away from Poe and Finn, the Resistance, and the rest of the galaxy.

BB-8 warbled quietly at her when she entered the Falcon’s cockpit. The little droid had wanted to follow her on this adventure and Poe hadn’t raised a word against it. R2-D2 and C-3PO, Leia’s old droids, were the most valuable to him now that they could help usher in a new era for the galaxy.

The two had already seen the end of the Republic, the reign of the Empire, the rise of the New Republic and then the First Order, and now its dissolution. They would help guide the new fledgling government, and perhaps Rey wouldn’t need to be present for much of it.

Luke had trained a new legacy of Jedi after defeating the Empire, but Rey wasn’t excited to do the same. She had lost so much already. It would hurt too much to lose much more. Perhaps in the future when the pain blooming in her heart had settled. When cracks became scars that could hold her together.

Rey sank into the pilot’s seat and stroked the controls in front of her.

Where should she go?

She had her ship, her droid friend, and the Force. Everything she could need.

Except for direction.

Rey pressed a button to access the holoprojector, and a map of the galaxy appeared in the cockpit. Transparent blue planets floated around her, orbiting the center of the galaxy with listless little movements. She swept through some systems, pulling up worlds and then tossing them back into their orbits.

The Force was silent with each of them.

Rey sighed and shut the holoprojector off.

She leaned back into her seat and sank into the weight of the Force.

It surrounded her and flowed within her like the blood in her veins. The Force was wrapped so tightly within her soul that she’d probably be torn apart if it was stripped out of her. She was so deeply embedded in it.

_ The Force is within everything. It is everything, _ Luke had once told her on the rocky cliffs of Ahch-To.

It had been difficult to feel its presence then. Now, it was so easy to recognize the parts of her that were the Force.

In the cradle of its presence, she could hear the beats of her heart like a drum that rumbled through her body with each strike. She could feel the whirring, electrified parts of BB-8, the soft humming of the Falcon. She could feel Tatooine outside her cockpit. 

Each grain of sand had a presence in the Force, and the weight of trillions upon trillions of them collecting together into great dunes filled her with ease. The fabric of that energy field hummed in everything. The ocean of the ground and the sky, the organic life of the sentient beings living on it, the sturdy framework of the rocks.

Rey could feel herself smiling as she sought the pathways of the Force, examined all the surrounding things with the sight of something that was omnipotent.

And then… she touched upon the tattered remnants of something in her mind.

Her head was a galaxy and she could walk the paths of her mind that led to a thousand doorways. They were like stars filling the empty spaces with memories and feelings and the things that made her Rey. But part of the way down the path of her soul, the light-filled walkway ended abruptly and dropped into an empty abyss.

Something used to be there, but it had been taken from her.

Rey tugged weakly at the thread that used to connect her to Ben, but it was slack.


	2. Lying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bond comes alive again

Rey found a training droid in a bag on the Millenium Falcon. She had nothing better to do than carry it out onto the desert plains of Tatooine and practice deflection with her lightsaber. She had used some of these on Ajan Kloss, and the familiarity of it was bittersweet. General Leia had once overseen her training.

After the Battle of Exogol, Rey pieced together her own saber with a kyber crystal from Master Luke and parts of her quarterstaff from Jakku. The lightsaber was a combination of her past and present. Perhaps it would be a light bringer of the future.

Rey thumbed the activating switch and the lightsaber sprang to life. Under the Tatooine suns, the light looked bleached, almost white instead of its normal yellow.

Rey turned and faced the training remote set to Lethal.

A quick succession of lasers shot from the remote, each aimed at Rey’s head, torso, and legs. The flick of her wrist was a smooth and instinctive movement. The lightsaber sliced through the air, deflecting the lasers and sending them skimming just past the remote.

She didn’t want to destroy it just yet.

The sphere spun rapidly through the air, shooting an array of lasers. Rey sank into the force and let the weight of her lightsaber guide her wrist.

All too soon, the remote deactivated itself.

Rey huffed out a quiet breath and turned to the brown canvas bag the remote had been stashed in. There was a helmet nestled inside. Rey pulled it out and placed it on her head. It fit comfortably, and the shield pulled down to cover her eyes.

Now for a challenge.

Rey sank into the Force as the remote started up again.

She breathed into the void of its presence, feeling the energy field send it back to her with new sensations. Every part of her was heightened.

She could feel the thrumming of blood in her legs, down to her feet connected to the sand. The desert buzzed beneath her.

She squeezed her fingers around the hilt of her saber, and the feeling was like coming home. It was as familiar to her as the quarterstaff she’d used all her life. It felt even more familiar than Luke’s had. This one was a part of her.

The Force contracted around something moving toward her. It guided her wrist in a smooth cut. The saber snapped and the scream of deflecting lasers sounded in the liquid abyss of her mind. Rey sank as far into the Force as she could, letting it expand and fill her body, filter into the spaces between her blood cells, bones, and muscle until she was more energy than tangible.

The lightsaber danced in her grip and she spun, whirled, and ducked as army upon army of lasers shot her way.

The Force was an unending conduit of strength and Rey basked in it as her body moved and shifted like liquid. The lightsaber was in one hand, transferred to another, twirled in a reverse grip, sent spinning out into the desert where the Force absorbed it and hurled it back into her grip for the cycle to repeat.

Rey grinned.

She felt more alive than she ever had in the past few weeks.

The Force filled the empty gaps in her heart like a friend and she threw herself into the ocean of its energy.

She felt strong. She felt like a Jedi, like one of the mythical stories some Jakku traders and scavengers used to tell each other in hushed voices.

Rey tugged on the tether in her mind. The one that used to connect her to another soul.

The tattered ends of the cord appeared in her vision and Rey stumbled. The Force fled as her concentration broke and Rey gritted her teeth and called it back again. She weaved its energy into the severed end of the broken connection and tossed the cord back into the abyss like a fishing line, searching the emptiness for a spark. Anything.

Nothing came back along the line. No vibrations. No sign of Ben’s presence anywhere in the Force. Where there had once been something connecting them, there were now broken threads hanging limp in her fingers. Where Rey had once only had to think of Ben and step into his physical space, there was nothing when she called his name.

Sharp pain bloomed across her collarbone and the Force slipped away from her. Rey cried out and jerked the helmet harshly off her head, barely dodging another laser from the remote.

She swung her lightsaber and deflected the red jet back at the training sphere. It hit the twirling remote and sent it bouncing down the desert plain. It rolled to a stop some distance away.

Rey sucked in heaving gasps of air trying to calm herself. She reached for the Force again and let it fill the emptiness in her chest until she felt she could breathe normally again.

She deactivated her lightsaber and attached it to the clip on her belt before she could be tempted to send it hurling in a fit of frustration after the training remote. The Force welled inside her like a surging ocean and all at once Rey was calm again.

She stepped lightly to the training droid and wiped the sand out of the circuits. It seemed alright. A little banged up, but it had been designed to take a bit of a beating. She stowed it in the canvas bag with the helmet and headed back to the Falcon.

BB-8 wheeled happily at the sight of her coming up the entry ramp and Rey cracked a solemn smile.

“Your antenna’s bent,” Rey murmured, crouching down to BB-8’s level, “What have you been doing?” 

She reached for the droid’s Transceiver Antenna, and as her fingers touched the metal wire, a sudden spark shot through her mind.

It was beautiful and familiar. Like coming home. Her mind settled. Her heart slowed and its rhythm matched the steady pumping of another’s. For a moment, the cracks in her mind and her heart smoothed over as the other half of the bond suddenly locked onto hers.

The tattered ends of the cords weaved together. The Force warbled down the line connecting them and the vibrations were a shock wave thrumming deep in her soul.

Rey leaned her head back in wonder. She had forgotten how it felt to be joined with the other half of her soul.

“Ben,” she whispered into the air, and it echoed down the bond with the Force.

All at once, the cord snapped.

Rey recoiled at the sudden loss and keened into the empty corridor of the ship.

Agony swept through her chest like waves rushing down an empty bank.

Tears leaked from her eyes and she tried to breathe through her empty chest.

The Force trickled in slowly, weaving itself into the stretched tendons, the empty spaces in her heart where Ben used to be.

Rey curled up against the wall of the Falcon and drew the Force over her like a blanket, but the feeling wasn’t the same. It could fill in the gaps, but it wasn’t the boy with dark hair and brown eyes.

BB-8 wheeled over to her slowly. 

“I’m sorry, BB-8,” she whispered. “I’ll fix your antenna now. Just give me a moment. I need to catch my breath.”

The spherical droid trilled in confusion.

Rey looked up, startled.

BB-8’s antenna stood tall and straight on its head.

It hadn’t been bent at all.

◉◉◉ 

Rey curled up under a blanket in the pilot’s chair of the Falcon. The soft wool smelled like Leia. Rey burrowed gratefully into it. She was used to heat after growing up on a desert planet, and Tatooine was painfully similar to Jakku. But inside the Millenium Falcon, the Air Circulator cooled the ship down to a chilly 20°.

More than that, she felt tired and wrung-out.

BB-8 rolled quietly around the cockpit and stopped at her seat. The orange and white droid cocked its head, let out an inquisitive series of little beeps, and then flicked its lighter at her with a happy little squeal.

Rey smiled despite the emptiness in her chest.

“You’re trying to cheer me up,” she murmured, sitting up more comfortably in the seat.

BB-8 rolled in a circle and trilled.

“It’s working,” she said back with a straight face.

The droid chittered at her like a nagging old woman. Rey laughed, and the feel of it shocked her. It had been a long time since she had laughed so easily.

The Force settled over her like a warm blanket, as if it too was at peace now that her emotions were easing.

“You’re right. I’m lying a little,” Rey clutched the wool blanket closer to her chin. “You know, I came here to feel at peace laying Master Skywalker and Leia to rest. And for a moment, I did feel it.”

BB-8 beeped inquisitively.

“I have what I’ve always wanted. A family. I’m a Skywalker now,” she smiled and reached out, smoothing the soft metal of BB-8’s antenna between her fingers. “And yet, I want something else, too. Someone else, actually. He should be here by my side to see this through.”

The droid whirred sadly.

BB-8 had always been a bright astromech. Like Leia’s old droid R2. They were clever and loyal, dependable and even brave. Sometimes Rey forgot they were droids. They had personalities that even the Force swelled behind. 

“I want to leave here and hide out on an unknown planet for many years. Like Master Skywalker. But we know all about running, don’t we? It never solves problems.”

Rey buried her nose in the soft blanket, breathing in the stale and distant scent of Leia’s perfume. She dimmed the lights in the cockpit, tucked her face under the wool, and fell asleep to the soft humming of BB-8 and the Millenium Falcon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next couple chapters will probably come in really quickly. The semester hasn't started yet, so I can still dedicate every day to this fic.
> 
> I promise, the action will start happening soon and things will speed up more :)
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr, too, if you'd like :) I follow back. Shoot me a message if you'd like. Star Wars is always fun to talk about. And I'm itching to post more Reylo stuff. My Tumblr is the same as my Ao3 profile without the underscore: jedialo21


	3. Tether

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey reaches for the tether again and something changes...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your wonderful comments!

Rey left the cockpit with BB-8 in tow before dawn could spread pink fingers across the sky. The night was still dark and a few stars twinkled just above the horizon. They would disappear as soon as Tatooine’s suns rose in the distance.

The pair trekked up one of the higher sand dunes. The Lars homestead loomed solemnly behind them.

Rey sat in the soft sand despite the promise that it would take weeks to get all the little grains out of her clothes later. She pulled her lightsaber into her lap and thumbed the familiar grooves in the metal. Her quarterstaff had been strong, able to withstand strikes from all sorts of weapons. She didn’t mind the thin scratches crisscrossing up and down the lightsaber hilt. They reminded her of who she had been in the past: a survivor.

BB-8 rolled slowly over the sand dunes, scanning the ground for womp rats burrowing underground from the cold still clinging to the air. Rey smiled at the droid over the blanket she had slept with last night. She had cloaked her shoulders with it when they set off from the Falcon. It felt like a mother’s warm hug.

Rey looked out over the plains where the suns would rise. The lights from moisture vaporators flicked on and off in the distance, and as the minutes ticked by and the dark blue of the sky began to lighten, the metallic bodies appeared like soldiers in the clearing mist.

Rey thought about the evening before after she buried the lightsabers. One of the moisture farmers from the Jundland Wastes had been passing through on a journey to Anchorhead and spied her outside the Lars homestead. Rey remembered looking out into the distance where the heat from the suns rippled across the sandy plains and gave way to the image of Luke and Leia smiling at her.

The Force had swelled within her heart and she had felt more loved at that moment than she had in her entire life. She had been given a family, the blessing of the Skywalker name.

Now, she felt empty.

Rey wanted to hate herself for it, but the pain in her heart wouldn’t let her.

Ben deserved to be next to her now. Sitting on the sands of Tatooine while his mother and uncle watched over them through the Force.

She wondered that he hadn’t appeared with them yesterday.

He had melted so quickly into the Force back on Exogol. Nothing of his body had been left behind. He must’ve joined his family. He was so strong; it must’ve been easy for him to manifest as a spirit. Where was he?

Rey clenched her fists in her lap and closed her eyes. She called out to the Force, and it enveloped her mind, her body, filling her with a deep sense of calm and… resolve. She sought the pathway that had once led her to Ben.

Standing at the edge of that glowing pathway and peering down into emptiness almost stole away the sudden courage she felt. She shoved those feelings aside, fed them to the belly of the Force to be expired, and tugged on the tether again.

Like it had done so many times before, the cord slackened and came into her hands weathered and torn where her bond with Ben had been cut. She stroked the tattered ends of it and then drew upon all her memories of the boy who had changed her life.

She imagined soft dark hair weaved between her fingers. She thought of the empty darkness after dying on Exogol. It was so cold and lonely there in that abyss. The Force abandoned her on an endless plain of isolation. She wanted to scream into the blackness in front, behind, above, and below her; but she didn’t think the screams would travel anywhere. And then something in her gut had tugged, and the tether between her and Ben lit up in a white so blinding she had been forced to open her eyes—

And see soft brown ones staring back at her.

Ben’s gaze was so soft and concerned. Rey hadn’t hesitated a second before threading her fingers in his hair and pulling his lips down to meet hers. He melted so willingly into her body. His lips tasted like home.

_Yes_ , she had thought.

She’d wanted this for so long.

Ever since waking up in the interrogation room on Starkiller Base, her heart had pounded so hard in her chest she was afraid that Kylo would hear it and tear it out of her chest. She had been too scared to feel their connection, too caught up in the rumors that Kylo Ren was a faceless monster behind a mask. An unfeeling beast as cold as a droid.

And then his mask was lifted over dark hair, and his eyes had been the first she’d seen. They were cold and hard, but Rey found pain and fear in their depths, buried under layers of ice.

He had never been a monster.

Just a boy who felt betrayed by everyone in his life.

Rey could understand that feeling of abandonment.

She remembered the feeling of their bond solidifying, growing stronger, ever since the duel in the woods with snow sizzling on their lightsabers.

She remembered the first time he visited her on Ahch-To, and the wonder of their hands meeting from light-years away.

The rain outside had dimmed in the background of her mind. The firelight danced in Ben’s eyes and she marveled at the softness of the brown, the way they almost glowed maroon in the flickering flames.

From the other side of the fire, they were almost black with fear, but the heat and her presence seemed to warm them. She trembled in her thick tunic despite the warmth of the hut. The Force seemed to surge with the flames, filling her with a heady sense of need.

He removed his glove so slowly. The anticipation was too much to bear.

Rey felt nervous and excited, wondering if they’d be able to touch through the bond that always seemed to plague her now that she was with Master Skywalker. 

He always seemed so strong and brutal, but his hands were soft and warm and calloused from many years holding a lightsaber. They were warm.

She followed the lines of his fingers, his palms, tracing the map of him so she could always find him in the darkness. The bond trembled with her body.

And then the feeling of pain when they sprang apart… Master Skywalker shouldered his way in with outrage.

Rey remembered how tempted she felt to take Ben’s hand after they defeated Snoke and his guards.

The bond itched and tugged painfully at her, drawing her forward to meet with the other half of her soul. But his eyes looked so black and hard and she wanted Ben Solo to stand by her. Not Kylo Ren.

Rey remembered and weaved each memory into the tattered threads of their bond. In the same way she had melded memories of Luke and Leia into their lightsaber hilts. She fused her love and sorrow, pain and pleasure, warmth and coldness into the cord.

The Force was her stitching needle. She weaved a cloth of opposites. Balanced chaos. 

Like Luke’s lightsaber. Like hers. Like Ben Solo and his identity as Kylo Ren.

She stroked the tether gently, feeding it everything in her mind. This wouldn’t work if she held something back. There were no secrets between her and Ben. Their bond was too strong for that.

_Don’t be afraid. I feel it too_ , the words he had spoken to her and in her mind when he interrogated her. When he tore through the barriers of her head so easily and exposed everything she’d always been able to hide. They recognized something unspoken and raw between them. A fledgling bond that only grew with time.

“Come back to me,” she whispered, into the air of Tatooine and down the severed tether. “Come back to me, Ben.”

_You’re not alone_ , the words he had whispered over the fire on Ahch-To, when she’d felt more alone than all her days on Jakku.

Rey gritted her teeth.

“You can’t hide, Ben,” she whispered weakly under her breath. She remembered the same words he’d used when she tried to sever the bond between them on Crait. When the door of the Millenium Falcon and her mind had closed on Ben’s face and left them both in painful darkness. “Not from me.”

She tossed the new tether back into the abyss and willed the Force to wrap around it and carry it out far over the plain of nothingness that caused her so much agony.

“ _Please_ ,” Rey gasped. “Please, Ben.”

The line glowed brighter than anything else in her mind. Brighter than any star.

She wondered if it would catch, if it would fizzle out and die, if it would be lost to the emptiness of the Force and her mind, never to tether again. Never to connect them.

She stroked the warm line, and the Force whispered against her fingers, shards of all the memories she’d infused into it.

Rey took a breath and tugged on the line.

It was firm, but not solid in the way it used to be when tethered to Ben’s mind. She squeezed it in her palm like she would a lightsaber.

Nothing.

Rey whimpered, squeezed her eyes against burning tears.

She wondered if she’d ever feel whole again with the broken line stretching out into nothing.

Rey sighed and opened her eyes.

Tatooine’s suns had peaked over the horizon and sent blades of orange streaking across the blue sky. Rey moved to cover her eyes when a shadow stepped forward to shield her.

There was a flash of brown as familiar to her as the hilt of her lightsaber. Soft and yearning.

_"Rey,"_ the soft voice stirred the air like a breeze lifting comets of sand from the ground.

“Ben?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next few chapters have already been written, so look for another one either tomorrow or later today. Chapter 4 was actually really fun to write so I'm excited to release that one soon.
> 
> Again, things will start to pick up more from here on out, so bear with me :)
> 
> Thank you for reading


	4. Invisible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Force shows a piece of the past...

“Ben!” Rey shouted again and stood quickly, brushing her hands down her tunic. The Tatooine sands lifted with a sudden gust of wind and flashed in her eyes. She raised a hand to blow the dust back with the Force.

Rey blinked, and the figure disappeared as if he’d never been there to start. The light of Tatooine’s suns suddenly struck her eyes, and she recoiled, throwing out a hand to block the bright rays.

_ Ben _ .

The ache in her heart echoed down into her soul. She wanted to choke on it. She wanted to stand and scream out into the desert plains.

Why him?

Why Ben?

Rey’s eyes searched the plains desperately, but the shadow that had loomed over her was gone. There was only the blurred facade of moisture vaporators stretching out into the horizon. Dust skipped along the sandy ground. The planet was utterly lifeless.

BB-8 whirred softly.

“Did I hallucinate him too?” She asked the droid bitterly and turned away before the astromech could respond.

Rey stomped through the sands back to the Millenium Falcon, mind whirling over what she was sure she’d seen. That had been Ben’s shadow blocking out the light of the suns. That had been the other half of her bond settling back into place for a moment. Just like it had done when she’d bent to fix BB-8’s antenna.

Except…the Astromech’s transceiving wire had never been bent in the first place. She had hallucinated that. Did she imagine Ben here on Tatooine? Had he been there? Were these spells just the hopeful fantasies of her shattered heart?

Rey collapsed against the pilot seat and willed the tears to stay in the ducts of her eyes. Crying had done little for her when she was growing up alone on Jakku. Living on a desert planet taught one to conserve water. She couldn’t afford to spill tears for her missing parents.

She couldn’t afford to spill them for Ben. Crying was useless, and Ben deserved more than that.

Rey wanted to throw something. She wanted to ignite her lightsaber and swing it over and over until the ache in her arms matched the ache in her chest.

She wanted to duel with Ben, the only person in the galaxy who could’ve met her strength for strength.

If only he was still here. They would’ve been unstoppable, just as he’d promised her on Snoke’s ship. Just as he’d promised her again on his Star Destroyer hovering in the atmosphere above Pasaana. And they could’ve done so as Rey and Ben, children of Dark and Light, Jedi as mysterious as the Force.

She had accomplished the impossible. She had pulled Ben back to the Light despite all odds.

Why did he leave? 

The Force had willed their connection. So why had it taken Ben away?

Rey closed her eyes and reached out for the Force, ready to tug on the tether again, but… she was afraid now. Afraid that it wouldn’t work. That she’d draw on the severed bond and it would be slack as it always had since Ben died.

Rey sighed and curled up against the seat. She released her hold on the Force and it snapped back like a rubber band.

She tabbed the holoprojector and watched distantly as the transparent planets orbited the cockpit. A year ago she would’ve been desperate to escape the junk heap called Jakku and explore worlds with more color than brown. She would’ve taken the Millenium Falcon to a thousand worlds once the First Order had been defeated.

Now she wanted the same, but with Ben at her side.

Rey watched the dizzying spin of the projected planets. Smaller worlds, barely the size of her thumbnail, drifted under her nose and through the control board. She followed the paths of a couple, watching as the planets spun on their axes.

She watched them until their wobbly movements lulled her to sleep.

◉◉◉

_ Rey dreamed she was back on Kef Bir. _

_ The waves pummeled the remnants of the old Death Star. The black water crashed over and over into the metal of the old ship, tearing pieces of it away and dragging it deep into the sea depths. The sky above was a cold gray. It must have been cold out, but Rey couldn’t feel anything. Not the spray of the seawater. Not even her own body. _

_ She was merely a spectator. _

_ A lone figure stood on one piece of the wreckage floating like a small island above the roiling waves. The metal beneath was slick with saltwater. Rey realized with a start that Ben stood, pacing the length of the wreckage. His hands twisted something long and black against his body. His lightsaber. _

_ Ben mumbled something under his breath, too soft for Rey to hear. _

_ He whirled suddenly and heaved the hilt of his saber far out into the roiling black waters. A piece of dark hair fell into his eyes and Rey wanted to reach out and tuck it behind his ear, but she couldn’t move or speak. _

_ This must’ve been a Force vision then. Something of the past. _

_ Ben stood at the edge of the wreckage, chest heaving. His back was turned to her, so she couldn’t see his face. She wondered if he was crying. Ben’s thin shoulders trembled. From cold or misery, Rey couldn’t tell. _

_ She wanted to run to him. Pull the both of them down to their knees so she could stroke his face and map out the cut of his jaw, his cheekbones. She wanted to smooth her fingers beneath his eyelids and wipe away his exhaustion and tears. Remind him they weren’t alone in the galaxy. They had each other, and that was more than enough for Rey. _

_ They would leave and live out their days on a planet as hidden as Ahch-To had been for Master Luke. Safe. _

_ Together. _

_ Ben turned and Rey marveled at the sight of his smooth face. _

_ Ben’s scars were gone. His face had healed over. _

_ She remembered the wonder and surprise she’d felt on Exegol when he had brought her back to life. She had melted in his eyes and reached out for his face, only to find that the familiar lines cutting through his skin were gone. _

_ “I know what I have to do,” Ben murmured. Rey strained to hear it over the deafening waves. _

_ His eyes seemed to touch hers, but he gazed right through her as if she was invisible. _

_ She was invisible.  _

_ Ben shrugged the cloak off his shoulders and knelt down on the slick floor of the wreckage. _

◉◉◉

Rey gasped awake and struck her head hard on the seat of the pilot’s chair.

BB-8 trilled in surprise and she groaned and rubbed at the spot.

“I just saw a vision,” Rey whispered. She desperately held onto the memory of it. Dreams always disintegrated with every second of wakefulness. She needed to hold on to every bit. “BB-8, set coordinates for Kef Bir.”

An inquisitive whir sounded across the cockpit.

“There’s something I need to check.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Next chapter up tomorrow!


	5. Jasmine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey stumbles upon an important piece of the puzzle

Rey twitched nervously in the pilot’s seat on the Millenium Falcon. She had spent an hour practicing some meditative exercises Master Luke taught her on Ahch-To, but the peace wasn’t settling. In fact, it had seemed to add to the throbbing pain behind her eyes. She was too excited to relax.

Her eyes bounced back and forth along the blue hyperspace tunnel, and she counted the ticking seconds that would bring her closer to Kef Bir… and perhaps to Ben.

The Force had shown her that vision for a reason. There was something else at play and she needed to figure out what it was. If anything, it might give her closure and she could return to Poe and Finn with a heart that felt a little less like it could fall out of her chest and shatter.

BB-8 whistled across the cockpit.

“A message?” Rey sat up and tossed the blanket aside. “From Poe?”

The orange and white droid rolled up to her chair and a transparent, blue projection of the Resistance leader appeared in front of her.

_“Rey? I don’t know how much longer you’re planning to spend on Tatooine,”_ Poe cried over the static of noise and activity behind him. He must’ve recorded this message after a council meeting or in the center of activity on Ajan Kloss. Typical Poe. _“But we really need you back down here. Our pilots are flying to the Outer Rim and Core systems to scope out the damage. We have_ _to begin plans for a new Republic while there isn’t anyone else in the way to stop us. We need you here to help out. Hurry back.”_

And with that, the message cut off, and the holo shut down. BB-8 looked expectantly at her.

“I know, I know. I’ll return you to your master soon. But I need to get to Kef Bir first. It’s important,” Rey said. The droid whirred back in confused assent.

“There was something left behind there that I need to find. After that I promise we’ll return to Ajan Kloss… and help rebuild,” she finished. Even to her own ears, the sentence trailed off pitifully. She didn’t want to go back to the Resistance.

There was so much that the rebels needed to do. Forming alliances and treaties with the other worlds, building up another democracy, and filtering out the First Order remnants throughout the galaxy would take decades. It would take even longer for hurts to heal over. So many worlds had been destroyed in the battle between both sides.

There would be quite a few systems in the galaxy that would want nothing to do with another Republic. Others would want nothing more than revenge.

Rey didn’t want to go back. Not when everything inside her was also crumbling. She had no direction. She had nothing else to hope for. All her life she’d wanted her parents. And then she’d wanted to bring Ben back to the light.

What was left now?

She could train a new generation of Force users. Master Skywalker did that, but it hadn’t worked out for him. Rey didn’t want the same to happen to her. Perhaps in the future, the Force would send her someone to train, but until then, she wouldn’t disrupt things.

Perhaps it was best to stand back and let the galaxy get back to its feet.

Rey would go to Kef Bir and find out what the Force was trying to show her. After that, she’d return to the Resistance despite everything inside that recoiled at the thought. She would do what Leia might have wanted. Use her status as a Force user to help the other worlds. There were probably millions in the galaxy that needed aid and reinforcement.

Poe had been talking about using her as a symbol to stand behind a new Republic.

And by helping people, she might forget about everything inside that screamed for the other half of her soul.

A button on the ship lit up and Rey sat forward. “Leaving Hyperspace,” she said, and BB-8 rolled forward to run diagnostics.

The blue Hyperspace lines faded out and a blanket of black and stars folded into view out the transparisteel windows. Kef Bir appeared in the distance.

The moon was small but beautiful. The roiling thunderstorms and oceans could be seen from light-years away, crawling across the surface of the world. Toward the poles, jets sprayed ice particles out into space and they glinted like crystals. Mist and saltwater created a thin net of droplets around the moon.

Rey aimed the ship down to the remnants of the Death Star.

As the Falcon leveled out above the plains, BB-8 let out an excited trill. Rey smiled in agreement.

It was like an entirely different world.

The first time she’d ever landed on Kef Bir, the ocean had roared angrily down onto the Death Star wreckage. Waves hundreds of feet tall had pounded over and over onto the remnants of the old Empire. Now, the sea was eerily calm.

Rey flew the Falcon over the top of the water. It was like glass beneath her. The sky above was cloned in the water below. As if the entire world was just air. The jets of the ship stirred little ripples below, distorting the mirror-like ocean of sky.

Rey landed the Falcon on the piece of wreckage she and Ben had fought on. Without the waves pummeling the metal, the debris was actually bigger than she’d thought. Perhaps it was part of the shell of the Death Star.

“Stay here, BB-8. I’ll be back in just a moment,” she told the white-and-orange droid.

BB-8 trilled.

“Yes, yes. Tell Poe we’re on our way back,” she said absentmindedly and turned to leave the cockpit.

Rey jogged down the ramp of the ship as the humming engines powered down.

It was abnormally quiet here without the sound of the deafening waves. The pounding of her heart was the only echo in her ears. Even her boots made no sound on the cool metal below.

Rey headed for the tall turbo laser where she and Ben had fought.

The Force stirred and whispered with every step.

She crouched down and stroked the cool metal floor, and memories lifted up to curl against her fingers.

Flashes echoed behind her eyelids of two lightsabers dancing in the mist of a torrid sea. Waves crashed and roared with deafening power. The surface beneath their boots was slick with cool water… 

_ The Force wrapped Rey and Ben both in shrouds of energy. Their bond pulled at the Force and filtered it out into both as they danced across the surface of the wreckage. Their lightsabers sizzled in the background when the sea spray hit the burning laser _ s.

_ Rey fought, half-blinded by the saltwater clinging to her lashes. She didn’t need to see, though. The Force guided her body, her wrists, her heart. It tugged her forward to meet Ben blow for blow and pulled her back as his lightsaber forced its way through her defense. Over and over they swung and ducked, weaving back and forth across the broken shell of the Death Star, gaining and losing the upper hand. _

_ Rey reveled in the feel of the bond pulsing with energy in her mind and soul. She could hear Ben’s breathing even through the deafening waves. They were so connected, she could feel his breaths matching every beat of her heart. _

_ Despite everything at stake, she felt alive. The Force buoyed her soul with endless energy. Ben could predict every move she would make. His lightsaber blocked her strikes half-seconds before she’d finished swinging. _

_ Rey’s blood called out to his. She could feel his soul in her veins. He guided her body and her swings even as he deflected each hit. _

_ She could feel the strength in his arms, his heart, his soul. As much as she wanted to win this duel- as much as she needed to- she also wanted to keep up this dance. Never had she felt so connected to another soul. _

_ Each breath she took brought her closer to Ben. _

_ Her soul curled into his, melded so closely with him that there was no difference between them. She couldn’t tell where they started and ended. _

_ More. _

_ She wanted more. _

_ The Force sang as she drove harder toward Ben. She wanted to feel the warmth of his skin against hers. Her blood felt hot, too hot to stay in her body. _

_ As if it wanted to leap out and join with Ben’s. _

_ And then his brown eyes slid away from her for half a second. _

_ Her wrist twisted. Rey was caught on the high of her rushing soul. She drove her lightsaber into Ben’s side _ —

Rey wrenched her hand from the floor of the wreckage as if it had burned her. She clenched her fingers as phantom pain coursed up and down her spine.

She had lost herself in that fight and hurt Ben.

And in turn, had hurt herself.

Rey stood and paced the length of the floor. She ignored the whispering memories of her duel with Ben that painted the air. The memory of all things were woven into the Force. It took concentration and energy to bring them to the surface.

Although, manifesting memories of Ben was as easy as breathing.

Rey called out to the Force, and it swelled around her. She could feel Ben in the air, and beneath the strength of his presence, she could also sense Leia.

Tears pricked Rey’s eyes at the familiar feeling of the old General. Leia’s presence had always been warm and calm in the Force. She had been such a confident and poised woman in life that even the Force parted around her when she walked. As if she was a queen.

There was warmth in the air. A mother’s love.

Rey closed her eyes and concentrated on that feeling.

Leia had always felt like the mother she’d never had. The same way Han had seemed like a father. Leia always saw her as someone that was strong, someone that was more than just a pitiful orphan abandoned on a deserted planet. Leia had never made her feel guilty and small. She had known Rey’s heritage since the beginning and still done everything in her power to nurture her Jedi training.

Despite the shadow of Ben’s betrayal, Leia had trusted her irrevocably.

Rey basked in the feel of a mother’s embrace. For a moment, she was tucked in a hug she’d never been given before. The scent of night-blooming jasmine and the woods hung in the air. Rey leaned back her head and let the scent fill her lungs.

“Leia,” she breathed.

_ Rey knelt down immediately and called on the Force to help her. She weaved it into Ben’s wound until the flesh began to knit together whole and unburned. Rey willed the tears away. Pain flashed up and down her body in reprimand. _

_ She had hurt the other half of her soul. _

_ For a moment, she was too ashamed to look at him. Jedi were supposed to be stalwart and unmoveable. They were not supposed to get carried away in a dangerous lightsaber duel. She had lost herself and hurt her partner.  _ Enemy _ , her brain helpfully supplied. Kylo was supposed to be her enemy. _

_ He had destroyed lives. He was evil; like Master Skywalker had said so many times on Ahch-To. _

_ Ben’s hair clung to his face with sweat and seawater. Despite herself, Rey wanted to reach out and tuck the stubborn strands behind his ear. _

_ Finally, she looked up and drowned in the ocean of his brown eyes. _

_ He was still Kylo Ren, but Ben Solo lived in those eyes. They were softer now than the first time Rey had seen him in that interrogation room. _

Rey turned her face and imagined she was nuzzling herself into Leia’s neck like a small child. The scent of Jasmine filled her lungs. She was safe and content now.

The agony in her chest eased. Rey wanted to sob at the feel of it.

She had forgotten how easy it had once been to breathe without pain.

Rey basked in the warmth settling over her like a blanket. Phantom fingers weaved through her hair, stroked down her neck, and across her back. They were comforting, gentle, coaxing. Rey closed her eyes and sank further into the feeling of peace until she slept.

◉◉◉

_ “I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.” _

_ That was Ben’s voice. Rey clung to the sound and followed the timber of it into the light. _

_ They were still on Kef Bir. _

_ Ben’s face was smooth and unscarred. His brown eyes- almost black in the low light- shone with pain and regret. He fiddled with the hilt of his lightsaber. Rey wanted to grasp his wrists and raise his hands to her face. She wanted to guide his fingers across the shape of it, so he could always find her in the dark when lost. _

_ Rey watched as he turned and hurled the lightsaber into the rolling sea. _

_ Ben knelt down on the floor of the wreckage. He leaned his head back and took a deep breath. The Force surged and the scent of jasmine filled the air. _

_ “Mother,” Ben breathed. _

_ A tear rolled down his cheek. _

_ Rey crouched down in front of him and reached out as if to catch it on her fingers even though she knew she couldn’t. This was another Force vision. _

_ Ben’s eyes opened. They were glossy with tears. Rey’s heart ached for him. _

_ “See me,” he murmured, and the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. It was like he was staring right at her. “Help me.” _

_ Rey ran her fingers through his hair and imagined that she could actually feel the strands on her skin. Her fingers passed right through him, though. Nonexistent. _

_ “I don’t know if I’m strong enough,” Ben whispered and clenched his eyes shut again. “I don’t think I can.” _

_ Rey hated that she could do nothing to help him.  _ “You can, Ben,” _ she whispered, and imagined that the sound could travel to him.  _ “I believe you can.”

_ Ben’s head lifted and Rey swore his eyes locked on her. Brown eyes, softened by the Force’s light, burned into hers. _

_ “I can’t do it alone. I don’t have the strength to save us both.” _

_ A shiver crawled down Rey’s spine. _

_ “A life for a life. The Force doesn’t work miracles.” _

_ Who was he talking to? _

_ Rey tilted her head and searched Ben’s eyes, but they were distant, like… like he was reaching into the Force and talking to someone on the other side…  _

_ “Luke taught me once, but I don’t think I could do it again. I barely managed the first time,” Ben was still talking into the Force. Rey leaned forward as if to cup his cheeks in her hands and paused right before they passed through his skin. She drew on the energy around them and searched the air. _

_ All she could smell was jasmine. _

_ Was he talking to Leia? _

_ “I’d do anything to save her,” Ben whispered. _

_ Rey’s heart thumped painfully in her chest.  _ “No, Ben,”  _ tears leaked out of her eyes.  _ “Save yourself. Not me.”  _ She shook her head against the memory of his eyes sliding away from hers, dim and cold and dead on Exegol. _

_ The Force surged like the sea waves crashing into the wreckage. It was bigger and more powerful than anything she’d ever felt before. She felt it pulling on her soul, on her own tether to the Force. Like the sand devils on Jakku that passed over the deserts, sucking everything in sight into a funnel of wind. _

_ Rey cried out in panic as her vision went dim. The Force was being torn away from her. She reached out desperately for it, trying to dig her mind in and pull back on what was being tugged away from her. _

_ Rey’s eyes fell on Ben’s form still kneeling in the water-soaked wreckage. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His face scrunched in concentration, maybe even pain. Rey noticed the thin trembling of his hands and shoulders. He was shaking so hard; she wondered if he would shatter. _

“Ben!”  _ She called,  _ “Ben, stop!”

_ The Force shuttered around her and Rey collapsed against the ground, clutching her stomach. She felt empty. The Force was being plucked out of her cells, stripped from her soul. She screamed in agony and the darkness closed rapidly over her eyes. _

_ The last thing she saw was Ben shaking on the ground. His mouth opened in a scream just like hers. _

_ The black shuttered over her eyes and a word echoed like thunder in her ears chanting repeatedly: Similfuturus.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, we're moving along now. I'm so excited for what lies ahead.
> 
> There's an important bit of information to focus on in this chapter, and you can probably guess what it is and how it changes everything :) Hint: it's at the very end
> 
> Theories, anyone?
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	6. Ask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An old friend pays Rey a visit

Rey gasped awake.

Her heart pounded in her throat and behind her eyes like drums. She stared up at the ceiling confused, expecting to see the clouds of Kef Bir overhead, but there were only glowing yellow lights above and a wall next to her. She turned over, confused, and realized she was wrapped in Leia’s blanket.

And lying on a bed in the crew quarters aboard the Millenium Falcon.

Rey sat up and groaned at the sudden rush of blood to her head.

“Be careful, child. Slowly,” the voice came from across the room.

Rey startled with a muffled cry. Her hands flew to her belt for the lightsaber clipped to her side, but her fingers only met empty air. Her head snapped up and she raised her hands, prepared to send a wave of Force energy at the trespasser.

“Woah, easy!” A familiar shape rounded the corner and appeared in view. Rey blinked against the stars dancing in her vision.

Magnified eyes met hers.

Familiar ones. 

Eyes dark and layered with the secrets of a millennium.

“ _ Maz _ ,” Rey breathed, smiling.

The wizened face before her relaxed with a soft grin. Maz Kanata adjusted her goggles and winked. “I’m glad I had the foresight to take your lightsaber. Otherwise, I’d be pieces on the floor,” she said, reaching into her tunic for the familiar hilt.

Rey clipped it to her belt. “I’m sorry. You surprised me.”

She shuffled over on the bed and Maz leaped up smoothly next to her.

Up close, Rey could smell spice and the sharp aroma of Tarine set into the wool of Maz’s cloak. Her orange skin looked pale even in the light of the crew’s quarters. Dark, purple bags were just visible beneath her goggles. She looked older than she ever had before.

Rey reached out and rested her hand on Maz’s.

“You have had quite the adventure, child,” the voice was nagging but affectionate.

“And you. You’re exhausted. I can feel it in the Force.”

Maz sighed. “I forget sometimes that wars don’t end when one side is defeated. Rebuilding is hard work. Harder than winning the actual fight. The First Order may have been destroyed, but that leaves the galaxy in disorder. And people are less willing to put their trust in another Republic when the last one failed.”

Rey watched her eyes dim. “Are you here, then,” she ventured slowly, “To drag me back to Ajan Kloss and Poe?”

“Drag?” Maz harrumphed, “We Force-sensitives are not so easily dragged. No, child. I’m here to guide you. Under Leia’s instruction.”

“What? But the General is gone and—”

“Gone? Have you learned nothing of the Force, yet? No. You still seek what is behind you. Do you remember what I told you back on Takodana? ‘The longing you seek is not behind you’.”

“It’s ahead,” Rey finished. Tears sprang to her eyes. Her chest ached for the missing half of her soul. “But I don’t know how to do that. How to look ahead,” she whispered, desperately breathing through the emptiness that had left Exegol with her that fateful day.

Maz’s eyes narrowed. “When I look at your eyes, I see the pain of one who has lost something they had spent such a long time denying. Except, what you long for is right under your nose.”

“But he’s gone,” Rey breathed. And despite the clamp she had on her emotions, a tear slid down her cheek. “ _ Ben  _ is gone.”

She realized with a start that she hadn’t spoken his name aloud since Exegol.

“He lives in the Force.”

Rey’s grip tightened. Irritation slithered up and down her body, warming her veins. “It’s not the same,” she shook her head. “Not the same.”

Maz searched her eyes for a moment and then sighed. “You are stubborn because you are afraid to know the truth.”

“I don’t know anything about the truth.” Rey unclipped her lightsaber and squeezed the metal in her hands. “I’ve been seeing visions of Ben. Memories of the past. But I still don’t know what they mean.”

Maz looked unconvinced. “There was another thing I told you in that castle. ‘You already know the truth.’ You are blinded by fear and you do not understand the Force.”

“I do! Master Luke taught me about balance and the Force’s presence in all things. It is all around, binding us and the galaxy together. It’s a great well of memory that if I could just sit and concentrate, perhaps I will find another vision that might help me—”

“You are afraid to reconcile what is right in front of you. The answers are here under your nose,” Maz tapped. “You do not understand the Force, because you approach it like a trick in the light. You have sought Ben in visions. You have tracked the truth in memory. But you have not asked the Force the question you seek answers to the most.”

“Is he alive?” Rey breathed.

Maz smiled sadly. “We beings often seek for pain and suffering where there is none. You have only to ask the Force and the rest will fall into place.”

Rey gripped Leia’s blanket in tight fingers. She glared down hard at the woolen threads.

Was it really that easy? Had it always been that easy?

A warm hand rested on her shoulder and she blinked as Maz’s soft brown eyes met hers. “Take some time here. Think about what I told you and  _ ask _ . There is no need to drill the Force for answers when it has only ever offered the truth freely.”

The hand slid away. Rey stared down at her palms and distantly registered the sound of the door closing.

Maz was right. Rey had only ever sought the memories of Ben as if they were clues to be pieced together and only shown to her as the puzzle came together.

She had never asked the Force directly if Ben was alive.

She was too afraid to know the truth.

_ We beings often seek for pain and suffering where there is none _ .

Rey exhaled, closed her eyes, and sank into the waters of the Force. It sang inside her, filling her body with waves of energy. She could feel it humming down the corridors of the Millenium Falcon and out the roiling sea of Kef Bir. She felt its power down to her toes, connecting her to the floor and everything below it. As far down as the planet’s core.

Rey breathed in relief as the Force settled in her veins and filled the cracks in her heart. She felt weightless as air. She could leave her body and travel on a gust through the galaxy, tugged along at the Force’s will.

Rey wanted to bask in it forever, give herself away entirely until she had melted into the Force and was nothing but this energy holding the stars and planets together.

But she couldn’t deny her soul that wanted something else even more… 

Rey sighed and called on her memories of Ben.

_ When she opened her eyes on Exegol, the first thing she saw were Ben’s eyes piercing her soul. She searched the brown depths desperately and found that each layer was wholly light. She grinned, lost in the sea of his presence in the Force and the way his soul clung to hers. _

_ Kylo Ren was not holding her in his arms. _

_ It was Ben. _

Rey leaned her head back, embracing the weight of the Force all around her.

“Is he alive?” She whispered.

_ Ben’s fingers had felt so warm, cradling the back of her head, stroking the nape of her neck. She wanted to melt into him, climb into his body until they were one heart, one mind, and one soul. He rested his forehead against hers and she breathed the scent of him. _

“Is he alive,” she repeated and sank as deep into the Force’s depths as she could. She was willing to offer her soul, offer every part of her so she could understand.

_ They were sitting and Rey couldn’t stop losing herself in the warmth of Ben Solo’s eyes. She cupped his cheek in her palm and something in her soul clicked when he relaxed at her touch. She stroked his cheek with her thumb and his eyes fluttered, glistened with unshed tears. _

“Is he alive!”

_ She wondered if it was alright to close the distance between them, but her heart tugged her forward and their lips met and all she could think was ‘finally’. She breathed Ben, tasted him on her lips and on her tongue. He sighed against her, a sound so broken and relieved that she gripped him harder. Rey threaded her fingers in his hair, reveling at the silkiness of it against her skin. She wanted to sob. _

_ Ben was here. Ben was hers. Kylo Ren and the sith were gone. _

“Is he alive!” Rey repeated, screaming into the Force. It echoed in her ears tenfold.

_ Rey stroked his cheek over and over. Her body was alight with electricity. Her fingertips prickled. Her lips felt warm with fire. Ben was everywhere and yet not close enough. She tilted her head and they slotted closer. She slid her hand up to his shoulder and cupped the back of his neck again, stroking the warm skin there. _

_ Ben broke the kiss, but he didn’t move away. He nuzzled her cheek softly with his nose. His shoulders heaved. _

_ Rey smiled, basking in the leftover shocks of delight running up and down her spine. _

_ Ben’s eyes were so soft and warm. She could lose herself in their seas forever. _

_ He smiled against her skin. _

_ And then his body went slack and he slumped backward to the floor. _

Rey gritted her teeth as agony twisted her spine. She wanted to double over and scream. The pain of Ben’s soul tearing away from hers was too much to bear.

“Is Ben alive!” She cried again, and as Ben’s eyes dimmed in her memory, white light filled her vision and she succumbed to the blinding force of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this work is almost complete. 2 more chapters left. I wanted this project to be a long one, and it still will be, but I've changed the format around a bit. 'Someone to Watch Over Me' will be the first part of the Reylo story, and I'm writing a second part right now which picks up after this story ends. Both works (and maybe a third) will be together in a series.
> 
> The second part is called 'How Rare and Beautiful' and I'm expecting it to be much longer than any other work I've written on Ao3!
> 
> Thank you everyone who is still reading. Your comments and Kudos make my day <3


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